


Ghost Stories

by SilverMoon53



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Ghost Stories, Original ghost stories, Pidge is a history buff, Serious discussions of death, Starts chill but gets kinda deep, Team as Family, a couple hundred at least, and this story assumes the show takes place many years in the future, in the sense of the ghost story is like an actual original ghost story, it's not super important but it is mentioned, kinda au-ish?, kinda fluffy?, like one of the first ones, takes place after episode 9: Crystal Venom, that was about dead soldiers coming home and closure, there's some swearing in it fyi, we're not given a timeline for the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 19:35:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11020125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMoon53/pseuds/SilverMoon53
Summary: It started with an off-hand suggestion from Lance, which grew into a 3AM grouping around a campfire telling ghost stories and roasting Hunk’s marshmallow-like creation.





	Ghost Stories

**Author's Note:**

> The history in this is (at least mostly) accurate. The history of ghost stories are really cool once you get into it. Anyway, enjoy!

It was Lance’s idea, because of course it was. Not that Pidge bore him any ill will about it, just that only Lance would respond to a “haunted castle” with a demand for the sharing of more ghost stories. She knew it was just how he coped with things. Of course, that didn’t mean she had to be happy about the idea.

The staying up late wasn’t what bothered Pidge, nor that the planet they were on somehow had the alien equivalent to mosquitoes. She was used to working late into the night, even before she became one of the paladins, and her long sleeves kept the worst of the bugs off. While she may never have been the most nature-inclined, she didn’t hate the outdoors. She would just rather be inside with her computers. The smell of the campfire tickled her nose and left her longing for the pristine, plastic and metal scent of a new computer. She would give almost anything to go back inside and away from this “bonding exercise,” as Lance had called it. 

In truth, it was the topic that irked her most. Ghost stories were so overdone, and illogical. And how were they even supposed to be scary? They were literally fighting one of, if not the absolute, the most evil beings in the entire universe. And she was supposed to be scared of creaking doors and opened windows? Even when she and Hunk were facing off the kitchen, she had been more angry than scared. 

Pidge figured that it wouldn’t be so bad if Shiro hadn’t made her leave her laptop in the ship. She could be using this time to search for her family, or find a weakness in Zarkon’s rein. But no, he had agreed with Lance that this was a “team building” time, and that she needed to take a break. While finding something to use as firewood, Pidge had grabbed some sturdy bark to scrape lines of code onto with charcoal. She liked to hand-write her code out first, anyway. 

Stuck on what kind of loop she wanted to use for the next function, Pidge looked up. Hunk was talking animatedly, waving his hands around as he spoke of a haunted kitchen. Pidge snickered as Keith and Lance exchanged glances, clearly unimpressed by their friend’s tale. She had missed most of the story while her mind was on the code, so Pidge just let herself get lost in the sound of Hunk’s voice and the cackle of the fire. Hunk finished with a jump scare that, despite not fully paying attention, Pidge saw a mile away. Lance yelped and practically lept into Keith’s arms before laughing. Keith punched him before offering Hunk congratulations on the turnaround of the story. 

Pidge was just about to bend back over her code when Lance spoke to her.

“Alright, Pidge, you’re turn!” 

She raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. Seconds passed without either saying anything before Pidge cleared her throat. “Uhh, no.”

“Aww, come on, Pidge!” Hunk prompted. “You have to know some!”

“I just-”

“Keith told his about the howling in the desert, I’ve told like, a bazillion, and Hunk told his totally-not-scary one about the kitchen!” Lance cut off her protest with a dismissive wave. 

“Hey, I totally scared you at the end!” 

“Details. Even Shiro told a few stories he learned from his time held captive. Fair’s fair, Pidgey.” His eyes narrowed in playful aggression. “You’re up.”

Pidge turned her glare to Shiro, who just shrugged helplessly. “It’s not worth fighting him on this, honestly.”

Heaving a great sigh, Pidge moved her bark to the side where it wouldn’t get smudged. “Alright,” she conceded. “Fine. But this won’t be your typical ghost story. And you get a history lesson before I begin.”

“What? That’s not-”

“Can it, Lance, you asked for this.” Pidge waited until he had backed down before taking a deep breath. 

“Ghost stories, at least those in the US, started way back. Like, way, way back, during the era of the first few world wars. See, people have always known the concept of death. Humans progress by living and dying, we thrive in disasters and live to press the limits. But before the first few world wars, death only took place at home. There were no weapons that could obliterate a body to nothingness, and no opportunity for people to die too far away from home to have their bodies returned. Then suddenly, the entire Earth was a war zone, soldiers went missing and few bodies were ever found, even fewer returned. Those who stayed home didn’t know how to deal with this, and many were in denial. With no body, with no tangible proof of death, surely the person was still alive. 

“That’s how the first ghost stories came about. They weren’t about spooks and scares, no poltergeists or angry spirits needing to be put to rest. The first ghost stories were about closure. About loved ones returning.” Pidge looked up and her eyes met Shiro’s. “About getting to say goodbye, to family, to friends. With no bodies, there were not as many traditional funerals, so people had to get creative.

“My family liked the idea that ghost stories are about saying goodbye, so every time someone died we just spent the next few days telling stories about them. Matt and I even made up our own stories, to be shared when we, too, died.” The group had fallen completely silent by this point, eyes glued on the youngest member. The temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees, and Lance looked guilty.

“Hey, Pidge,” he said softly after a nudge from Hunk, “you-you don’t have to. If you don’t want to, I mean. Just forget I said anything. I still have a few of my own stories, if you’d rather...?” 

Pidge shook her head, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. Keeping her eyes down, she said “It’s fine, Lance. It… I think I kinda need to talk about it. If you guys don’t mind that is.” She let out a bitter chuckle as Shiro laid a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, I kinda killed the mood.”

Mummers of support and comfort met her words and she smiled softly before continuing. 

“Matt gave me his before he and my dad left. I think he was worried that something might happen to him, and wanted me to have something to hold on to. I kept it under my pillow when he left. I would pull it out and talk to it, tell it that I miss him, that he better fucking come back or I’d be pissed.” She chuckled bitterly. “That I’d go out and drag his sorry ass home if I had to. Guess that’s what I’m doing now.” 

She paused again, listening to the fire snap and the nightlife murmur, giving herself a moment to gather her thoughts. “The night… The night I saw their mission on the news, I didn’t sleep. I stayed up, holding Matt’s story. I didn’t believe it. Crew error? My brother and my father, making an error that would kill them? It didn’t fit. So I didn’t open his story, I didn’t read it. I knew Matt would be pissed if he knew. After all, we wrote these stories for this exact situation, yet there I was, in denial just like those who started ghost stories all those years ago. He’s going to be pissed when I find him.” Pidge hesitated again, then she reached into her suit and pulled out an envelope. Without looking at anyone, she fidgeted with the worn paper. “I keep his story with me. I can’t read it, not while there’s a chance I can save him. I know he’d want me to read it, but that would mean saying goodbye. I know that I’m just like those widows and orphans and brothers and sisters and friends who needed something to say goodbye to because people don’t just disappear. It’s comforting, in a way. And I know that this is exactly what they did, because you can’t say goodbye to nothing. It’s terrifying in the same way. And I’m scared. I’m scared that I’ll never find him again, or dad, and that I’ll never be able to say goodbye. I’m scared that I’ll die before we find him and no one will ever know his ghost story.

“I’m scared of him being lost forever, to history. I don’t want him to be remembered as a nameless astronaut who tanked the first manned mission to Kerberos. I want his story known, even if I’m not the one to tell it.” She paused again for a second. Then, with a deep breath, she ripped the envelope open. Ignoring her friends’ gasps of shock, she started to read.

It was not a very well-written story. Matt was a scientist, not a writer. The writing was several years old on top of that, in messy chicken-scratch that Pidge kept having to pause to decipher. But it was from the heart, and it was true. It was Matt’s story, and Pidge knew that this would be what he wanted. 

Her reading his story was not her saying goodbye. It was not her giving up on finding him. She was not ready to do that, not yet. But it was a release of the stress that had weighed her down, and an acceptance that the universe needed saving first, and Matt second. 

And when she was done, and tears and hugs had been passed around and shared, when the story had been folded up and returned to its spot near her heart, Pidge smiled. As chatter once again swelled around the flickering campfire, as snacks got passed around, Pidge knew she had made the right choice. Matt would live on in his ghost story, even if Pidge herself wasn’t the one to carry it forth. And if the only ghost that she left behind was one to tell of her brother, then she was okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> I made a tumblr in case you want to yell at/talk to me https://cloudcoveronclearnights.tumblr.com/


End file.
